Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 13, 2013July 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Allwinner Showcases A20, A31 and A31s Devices: Tablets, Phablets, Mini PCs, Projectors, Laptops, Development Boards…

Charbax is now at the China Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong, meeting and interviewing lots of Chinese companies. One of the companies I’ve been following is AllWinner because of their low-cost ARM Cortex processors, found in many Android devices, which somewhat support Linux. In the video below, we first learn they have shipped 1 million A31 in the last 4 months, A31s and A20 processors have been available since the end of March for phablets, and A20 price is supposed to be very close to A10. So products based on AllWinner A10 could be upgraded to AllWinner A20 for just a few dollars more as both SoC are (nearly) pin to pin compatible. By the way, if you’re interested in the Cubieboard, you may want to see this. We then go through lots of devices based on AllWinner SoC, albeit too fast to get many details, but the list may […]

April 12, 2013April 13, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MINIX To Launch Four New NEO Set-Top Boxes: X5+, X5 Mini, X3 & X7

MINIX is a company relatively well know for its Neo G4 mini PC and Neo X5 Android set-top box based on Rockchip RK3066. They’ve now announced 4 new devices for HKTDC Electronic Fair in Hong Kong: Neo X5+ – RK3066 Set-top box based on Neo X5, but with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB RAM. Neo X5 Mini – Low cost version of the Neo X5 with 8GB NAND Flash instead of 16GB, and missing Bluetooth support. Neo X3 – Android 4.1/4.2 Set-top box powered by AMLogic AML8726-M3 with 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, and 802.11n Wi-Fi. No word about Ethernet support. Neo X7 – Android Media Player based on Rockchip RK3188 with 2GB RAM, 16 GB RAM, HDMI, Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth support. The full specifications are not available yet, but the design of the box is nice, although it might not be to the taste of everybody, and I […]

April 12, 2013April 12, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

WonderMedia Announces 7″ and 10.1″ Reference Tablets Powered by WM8980 SoC

WonerMedia has unveiled 2 turnkey tablet solutions for manufacturers powered by their WM8980 SoC combining a dual Cortex A9 processor, and an ARM Mali 400MP2 GPU. One design is based on a 10.1″ display, and the other on a 7″ display. The key features of WonderMedia tablet reference designs are as follows: Up to 1.4GHz WM8980 ARM Cortex- A9 Dual-Core processor ARM Mali-400 Dual-Processor GPU Up to 2GB DDR3 RAM and 16GB NAND Flash Thin design of only 4.5mm on top edge and 3mm on side edge Weight – 650g for 10.1” and 370g for 7” designs Support for up to 8M rear camera and 2M front camera WiFi and 3G cellular networks support I/O – 1x Mini HDMI port, 1x Micro SD port (up to 32GB), 1x USB and Micro-USB OTG port, and 1x 3.5mm stereo headphone jack Battery – Up to 8000mAh battery for 10.1″ and up to […]

April 12, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Keil RTX RTOS is Now Available for Energy Micro EFM32 MCUs

Energy Micro has recently announced the availability of the Keil RTX real-time operating system (RTOS) as part of its Simplicity Studio tool suite. The Keil RTX has been optimized for ARM Cortex-M processors to provide flexible scheduling and high-speed operation, and has been improved to enable an ultra-low power, deep-sleep mode between tasks. Energy Micro has implemented a tickless mode in Keil RTX. This mode allows the EFM32 Cortex M3 MCUs to wake up only when needed, either at a scheduled time or on an interrupt event. This results in much lower power consumption in sleep mode compared to other SysTick implementations. The video below shows the difference between SYSTICK mode where the system consumes about 2.7mA in active mode, and 830 uA in sleep mode to the new tickless mode where the MCU still consume the same amount of energy in Active mode, but only 1uA in sleep mode, […]

April 12, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Mele A1000G Quad Set-Top Box Features AllWinner A31 SoC

Mele A1000 Android set-top box based on AllWinner A10 is one the best platform to play with Linux on ARM, thanks to its low cost, numerous features, hackability, and the work of the developers’ community on arm-netbook mailing list, and now in sunxi-linux. I like it so much it’s the first item in my short list of hackable gadgets. However, the hardware specifications of the original Mele A1000 may be too weak for some of today’s applications. So I’m pleased the announce that Mele A1000G Quad is now available (for pre-order) with AllWinner A31 quad core Cortex A7 SoC, 2GB RAM and 8GB Flash. Here are the specifications for Mele A1000 Quad STB: SoC – AllWinner A31 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.5GHz + PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage 8GB Flash SD card slot SATA connector (most probably via a USB to SATA chipset) Video […]

April 12, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

UDOO Single Board Computer Features Freescale i.MX6 Dual/Quad and Atmel SAM3 MCU

Have you ever dreamed of a single board with the power of 4 Raspberry Pi and Arduino Due functionality? This dream should soon become reality thanks to UDOO single board computer. This open source hardware board is powered by Freescale i.MX6 Dual or Quad with 1GB RAM, as well as Atmel SAM3 Cortex M3 MCU that provides access to Arduino compatible headers. Here are the specifications of the board: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 CPU Dual/Quad Core @ 1GHz + Vivante GPU MCU – Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 (same as Arduino Due) System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – micro SD (boot device) + SATA (i.MX6 Quad only) Video Output – HDMI and LVDS + Touch (I2C signals) Audio I/O – Analog Audio and Mic Expansion Headers – 54 Digital I/O + Analog Input (Arduino-compatible R3 1.0 pinout) Connectivity Ethernet RJ45 (10/100/1000 MBit) WiFi Module USB – mini USB […]

April 11, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Open Source Time Machine #2 – Build A Complete Watch Yourself

There are already some watches such as Texas Instruments ez430-Crhonos and MetaWatch that are used as development platform and let you develop software yourself. Some hardware documentation is usually provided as well, but Energy Micro forums’ member hairykiwi is trying to go a bit further. He created a watch based on EFM32 Cortex M3 MCU and already released the KiCad schematics and gerber files, with 3D printer files and firmware source code to be released once they are ready. The project is called “Open source Time Machine #2” (OTM2). The project makes use of the following components and features: EFM32LG332F256 – Energy Micro Cortex M3 Leopard Gecko MCU with 256KB flash and 32KB SRAM A 128×128 pixel (23.2 x23.2mm visible area) ultra low power Memory LCD from Sharp Microelectronics, Recharge and programming via Micro USB connector. JTAG programming is also available. 150mAh Li-Po Battery + on-board battery fuel gauge IC. […]

April 11, 2013April 12, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa Antutu Benchmark Results

The highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone should become available later this month in three versions depending on the country where you reside: GT-I9500 – Exynos 5 Octa @ 1.6 GHz without LTE GT-I9505 – Snapdragon 600 @ 1.9 GHz with LTE SHV-E300S – Exynos 5 Octa @ 1.8 GHz with LTE GS4 will also be the first device to feature Exynos 5 Octa octo-core processor, so until people get their hands on the device, one way to know how fast it can perform is to get some benchmarks running on the devices. SamMobile received the latest Antutu benchmarks for GT-I9500, and as expected, the results are pretty impressive with a score of 28018. This score is about 19% higher than GT-I9505 (Snapdragon 600) which scores 23607 points. As usual, the detailed scores are not available which is pretty annoying, but I’d assume both the CPU, thanks to the 4 […]